Notre Dame survives physical matchup with Trenton

LAWRENCE — Trenton gave top-seeded Notre Dame all it could handle physically, but the injury-depleted Tornadoes generated very little offense as they lost, 3-1, to the Irish.

The nine-seed Tornadoes entered the Mercer County quarterfinals without forward Harin Lopez, who was Trenton’s top goal scorer.

“In a game where they weren’t converting on chances, Lopez would have been a factor,” Irish coach Mike Perone said. “We lucked out a little bit and we were able to get away with a win.”

Also not helping Trenton’s cause was playing the final 24 minutes of the game down a man after Alex Marroquin earned a red card during a brief skirmish between Notre Dame and Trenton players. While ahead 2-0, Notre Dame’s Brian Hawkins was charging down the sideline with a defender at his heels. Both players went down while fighting for the ball and when they got up the Tornadoes’ defender threw an elbow at Hawkins’ head, hitting him near his neck. Hawkins had scored a goal roughly 10 minutes earlier to give the Irish a two-goal lead.

“I had the ball and the guy was on my back and he was ripping at my jersey, the ref blew the whistle and then he got up in my face and hit me,” Hawkins said. “I didn’t want to throw a punch and get a red card and be out of the next game, so after that happened we walked away.”

Only that wasn’t the end of it, Hawkins’ teammates rushed to separate the defender from him and soon Tornadoes players joined the scrum, with Marroquin running across the field to strike a Notre Dame player.

“This kid comes flying out of nowhere and jumps on the back of one of our kids and hits him in the back of the head,” Hawkins said.

Marroquin was ejected with a red card while Notre Dame’s Hawkins, Jacob Kwami and Todd Oakley received a yellow card. Trenton coach Dave Tindall said Marroquin will be facing further disciplinary action for his behavior.

“He didn’t do the right thing, he has to be smarter than that, it’s just stupid,” Tindall said. “No matter what happens, there’s no need for that.”

The game was briefly delayed while both coaches stepped on the field to talk to their teams and officials.

“It’s just something that happens and you have to walk away from it,” Perone said. “It was just the heat of the moment.”

Struggling with offense for the whole game, Trenton got its first goal while playing down a man. Anderson Martinez drew a foul while inside the box, leading to a penalty shot. Irish goalie Jamie Galazin made the save, but couldn’t corral the rebound and Heiler Montero put home his team’s lone goal. The Irish held off a furious comeback attempt until Hawkins iced the win with a goal in the final 13 seconds, beating his defender with his speed and lobbing it over goalie Christian Sandoval’s head.

“We kept our composure, which is big because they were coming at us,” Hawkins said.